Forums

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Is it Okay to Cancel Out of Posting?

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:20:00 GMT

Do you ever notice your workstation task manager shows The Financial Edge is not responding? Just because it shows not responding on your workstation doesn't mean that FE has stopped working. Many times the process is still running on the server. If you cancel the process at the wrong point it could result in data corruption and who wants that? Read more.

You can find other SB stuff on The Ledger blog by clicking the Student Billing tag. Talk to you soon!

2009 Online Giving Trends - Q2

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:03:00 GMT

The first half of 2009 is now over and we have some updated information about online giving trends from Blackbaud clients to share. This is a follow-up to the Q1 2009 Online Giving Trends information that was released in April. This information comes from approximately 2,000 nonprofit organizations using Blackbaud's Internet solutions and represents the largest sample size studied in the nonprofit sector.

Average Gift Amount Changes
An analysis of 1,973 nonprofits found an average online gift amount of $124.17 for Q2 of 2009. This was an increase of $2.07 from Q1 2009. A review of all the 2009 data shows that average gift amounts dropped through the first part of the year before bottoming in April and then growing again in May and June. This is consistent with giving trends we've seen for several years now.

Year Over Year Performance Trends
The analysis looked at a sub-group of 1,274 nonprofits to compare their online fundraising results for the first six months of 2008 to the same period of 2009. These nonprofits had a 22.13% year-over-year growth in online revenue. This growth trend continues to be very positive despite mixed economic conditions for many organizations. These organizations all used a combination of Blackbaud online fundraising, email marketing, and integrated CRM tools.

Online Major Giving Trends
An analysis of data for January 1st through June 30th of 2009 found that 1,245 nonprofits had at least one online gift of $1,000 or more. 38 nonprofits in the analysis had at least one online gift of $20,000 of more so far in 2009. Online pledges and recurring gifts were excluded from the analysis. Major donors continue to move to the web as part of their giving behaviors. The 2008 donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis indicated that median of 34% of online donors earned over $100,000 annually, compared to a median of only 24% of offline donors in the same income range. We'll continue to monitor this trend in the future.

Notes: All data is calculated directly from online transactions processed by Blackbaud. Online recurring gifts and pledges are not included in the entire data analysis. The single largest online gift ($50,000) and single smallest online gift ($1) during the analysis period were removed.

Getting Out of Our Comfort Zones

Kirk Sadler — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:14:00 GMT

I just read an great article from the Nonprofit Times called, Youth Movement Critical for Boards. It is almost incomprehensible to read that we need an average of 26 million new board members each year just to keep the nonprofit world we love running. Of which only 2% is staffed with individuals under 30 and 30% are staffed with individuals between 30 - 49. That means nearly 70% are staffed with Baby Boomers. In fact, the retirement of so many Baby Boomers could affect the future growth of the nonprofit sector.

OK, so what does that all mean for me. As a young, grass roots or small nonprofit you may not even have a board yet or perhaps you just recruited your first board member or two. If you are not a nonprofit, but a personal fundraiser raising money on behalf of a cause, be that a charity or one more personal to you or your family, you too will certainly not have a board --- so why I am writing this post.

I am writing this post as we all must engage each generation not just the ones we are familiar. I am "classified" as Generation X (born between 1965 - 1979) and must admit that most of my life is spent with people similar in age, with similar social, economic and family patterns. Birds of a feather --- well they flock together. So when recruiting your next board member or planning your next campaign (or fundraiser) make sure your outreach includes all generations to volunteer, donate, and serve. Each generation will have different ideas, different networks, different ways of communicating, etc. Tapping into those ideas, networks and communication streams will prove invaluable as they will bring your cause to places you could not do alone if you stayed within your comfort zone.

Think about it for just a minute. When someone hears Facebook, they think of Generation Y (born between 1980 - 2000). However, did you know the fastest growing segment of Facebook is Women over 55? That said, are you asking your baby boomer supporters to inform Generation Y about you --- since they are both on Facebook? Also, did you know that Generation Y is the first generation to be more aware of world challenges --- thanks to the Internet? In fact, 81% of 1800 youth (ages 13 - 25) individuals surveyed said they volunteered last year. Again, how are you tapping into this desire to make the world a better place?

As always, if you have any product suggestions or simply want to share a great story about online fundraising please do not hesitate to email me at kirk.sadler@blackbaud.com.

Happy Fundraising!

Shortcuts to Journal Entry Batches

Heather Robinson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:27:00 GMT

"Ugh, manual journal entries take forever!" Sound familiar? Well I have a few tricks to speed up the process!

Journal Entry batches can have a default row that will store information you type over and over again, such as post dates, journal and account numbers.

First, let's make sure you have a default row. Select Tools and Options from the menu bar. Select the Records tab, highlight Journal Entry, and make sure Yes is selected for Display first row of batch as default row. Now, we can set user preferences. Are you more of a keyboard person or a mouse person? Well, there is an option for both! In the Enter batch default row, select either by field with the F2 key or by row when placing cursor in row. Now you're all set to give your fingers a break.

Next time you enter journal entries, you'll see a D row at the top of the batch. Enter your default information in this row. As you enter transaction information, the defaults will auto populate based on the Enter batch default row option selected.

Check out the Journal Entry Quick Reference Guide and the Tired of Mouse Clicks blog for more shortcuts.

I hope this makes your life a little easier!

The Forefront of Technology

Jay Love — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:08:00 GMT

During a recent reading session I was taken back down memory lane by an article in Fast Company entitled "The Evolution of Amazon". (One often goes down memory lane once past 50, but hang with me on this one if you can.)

The article speaks for itself regarding the total transformation of the book publishing industry by Amazon and the Kindle. Such massive changes are exciting for most and downright scary for those closest to the established industry. In this case, the metamorphosis of the book publishing industry with its many strange caveats may be good. Like most industry transformations the established few will fight it tooth and nail.

This made me ponder the many such transformations I have been part of in the technology world. My fascination with technology started early with taking old radios and televisions apart. You could see radical changes then based upon models 3-4 years apart. Now the changes come every 6 months.

My first job out of college allowed me to be the trendsetter in a more traditional business. I started my career in business forms. I was pretty good at selling them up and down the street to all sorts of businesses on the southwest side of Indianapolis. Because of that fact the owners offered me the chance to help introduce carbonless paper forms to our area. This was sort of like the fax story I related a few posts back.

If you can imagine, I had customers plead with me to keep their old carbon paper forms that were messy and literally added tons each week to waste in our environment. Thank goodness the new way caught on. More importantly I was hooked on being part of the catalyst for change in any business setting.

My next two examples allowed me to be on the buying rather than the selling side. Not long after our first child was born, my wife decided to call in the Encyclopedia Britannica salesperson. She reasoned that, for us to be a proper household for attainment of knowledge, such a set was needed. We listened patiently to the presentation. Just as the properly trained salesman was going for the close, I mentioned the rudimentary online information service at the university where I was taking MBA classes. I asked why we should buy such a large set of books when I could research any article online there. I even ventured as far as to predict that nearly every middle class home and up may someday have access to such research via this online interface. Neither the sales person nor my wife bought in and we purchased the entire set and the annual updates until the worldwide web became commonplace!

The second one was over lunch with my travel agent in the early 90's. I asked her what she was going to do when all of her customers could easily compare flights and buy them with a few clicks of a button. Her retort was that the airlines would never put her out of business and the paper printed ticket would keep her around. She closed up several years later after downsizing twice.

In both cases technology caused transformation to happen in real time. Numerous people benefited and only a few lost. However, those who were losing made a ton of noise.

I truly believe this will continue to happen in philanthropy. We have already seen the convenience and proliferation of web sites and online giving. That in my opinion is just the tip of the iceberg. Communications and the relationships they nurture are the key fulcrum of philanthropy. It is in this area of communication where the transformation of technology is happening quite rapidly.

Communications are now pervasive for all of us. We have the desire to share and to know what everyone else is doing that we care about, hence the lightening fast growth of social media such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Add in the RSS feeds, emails, texts and other real time communications and you have the makings of a revolution in relationship building for nonprofits.

Just imagine how easy it will be for all of us to be in the real time communication fray when we only need to carry one single device to use. Please click on this link to see Dan Mascai’s opinion on how that will all happen.

Here is a brief snapshot of the essence of the single page article. Online you can point to each device and see how they just might morph into one single device. Perhaps it will be as commonplace as a wristwatch is now!

How our diverse species of consumer electronics -- books, music, computers, and phones -- have evolved. Will a single device ever unite them all?

Doer of Deeds

Greg Hart — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:28:00 GMT

Dean Karnazes successfully completed 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days.
The final race was the NYC Marathon and he completed it in 3 hours. Incredible.
This is just one of his many endurance accomplishments but it gives you an idea of what the guy is like… he’s not a quitter.

In his recent blog post, he included this Teddy Roosevelt quote about the nature of failure:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

During tough times, we can all benefit from this mindset.
Make the world a better place.

SaaS

Joy Waite — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:26:00 GMT

With the release of ResearchPoint, which is only offered on the SaaS (Software As A Service) platform, you might have found yourself pondering the whole SaaS concept.

Maybe you even asked yourself some of the following questions...
What is Saas?
How secure is this platform?
Why are software companies moving to this platform?
Is the SaaS platform the right choice for my organization?

The latest White Paper, Rent or Buy: Why Nonprofits Need Software as a Service, does a great job addressing these questions and many more. So go ahead, take a look and find out what all the commotion over SaaS is really about.

Happy Prospecting!

**The Researcher's Edge is offered on the SaaS platform as well.

Excelsior!

Douglas Clinton — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:20:00 GMT

A Raiser's Edge query is a great tool for comparing specific values. For instance, if you want to find every record that has two $50 gifts, you can do so by creating a constituent query with the criteria Summary Information, Total Number of Gifts equals two, filtering on Gift Amount equals $50.

But what happens if you want to find records that have two gifts with the same amount, regardless of which amount you’re using?

If you have a great deal of patience and nothing else of any consequence to achieve in the next several months, you could set about using endless OR operators, or merging queries to find these records, but I wouldn’t recommend it. There’s also the higher math approach, which is to use RODBA to write a SQL query, but if you’re a Plain Jane end user like I am, that isn’t an option either. There is a third way to find these records, to compare one field against another without the tedium of entering every permutation into a query or using a more advanced tool like RODBA.

Sometimes you just have to be smarter than the software.

I have used Knowledgebase solution BB16868 many times as a skeleton key to get the information I need. The solution walks you through the process of finding constituent/spouse pairs that have the same (or different) last names and popping the records into a query for you. The process involves query and export, which are familiar to most, as well as the great boogeyman of The Raiser’s Edge – Import. Don’t let the involvement of Import discourage you from trying this solution – there is only one field to import and you don’t even change anything on the records.

Depending on what fields you need to compare, you can either create a query of your records or export every record in your database. When you select your fields to export, you will only need to include three – the record’s Import ID, and the two fields you wish to compare. The KB solution compares constituent and spouse last names, but you could compare two different phone numbers on a constituent, or even Gift Amount and Soft Credit Amount on a gift.

Extensive knowledge of Excel is not required to use this solution. Assuming that you have a header row, and that the Import ID is in Column A, the solution you would enter in Column D would look like this:

=IF(B2=C2,"Yes","No")

Once you have entered this in Cell D2, copy it all the way down the rest of the column. For every record where the values in columns B and C match, you will have a “Yes” in Column D. Contra wise, if the records don’t match, the formula will return a “No” value. Once Column D has been populated, your goal will be to winnow down the spreadsheet until only the records you want remain. Your first step will be to sort the spreadsheet by Column D, so that you have all the “Yes” records in one group, and all the “No” records in another.

Using the example from the KB solution, if you want all the constituents whose last names do not match their spouses’, you would delete all the rows containing the “Yes” records. When only the “No” records are left, delete columns B, C, and D – you won’t need them where this process is going. When the Import ID column is the only one left standing, save the spreadsheet as a .csv file and go to Admin, Import in The Raiser’s Edge. Create an Import and select the .csv file you’ve edited and saved as the file to Import.

At this point, the process pretty much comes down to marking two options. The first of these is on the General tab, where you will mark Update existing records. Remember, since the Import ID is the only field you are importing, you won’t actually be making any changes to the record – you’ll just be tricking the software into thinking you are.

The other option to mark is on the Summary tab – Create an output query of records updated. When you click Update Now, you will be prompted to save that Query – once the Import is completed, you will have the query of the records you need. This process does take you a few paces off the beaten path, but it’s a handy way to put together a query when a more straightforward approach isn’t an option.

The answer to the Brain Buster in this month's edition of The User's Edge is the computer keyboard!

Payroll Post Notes: Louisiana Tax Change

Jennifer Maroney — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:18:00 GMT

Beginning July 1, 2009, the tax calculation method for employees working in Louisiana will change. This tax change has been implemented in Payroll version 7.78, patch 9.

If you have employees subject to Louisiana state tax, complete your June payroll and then follow these steps before calculating payroll for July:

Download and install version 7.78 and patch 9.
Create a new state tax for Louisiana with an effective date of 07/01/09:
1. In Configuration, Taxes, select State taxes from the drop-down list and click New Tax.
2. In the Add new state tax setting for drop-down list, select Louisiana and click OK.
3. Change the effective date to 07/01/09.
4. Select State, Restore Defaults from the menu bar.
5. Select 2009 from the Restore the drop-down list and click OK.
6. Enter the remaining required information for each tax.
7. Click GL Distribution to enter withholding, liability, and expense accounts distributions.
8. Click Save and Close.
Change the withholding status of all employees with Zero withholding to either Single or Married withholding:
1. Create a query of records with a Withholding status of Zero.
2. On the Results tab, open the first record.
3. Change the Withholding status and click the single right arrow on the action bar to move to the next record.
Note: Although Louisiana no longer offers a Zero withholding status, we have left the status available so you can easily identify employees that need to be updated.

For more information about the Louisiana tax changes, refer to the Louisiana Department of Revenue website.

Blackbaud in the News: To screen or not to screen, when is the question

Melanie Mathos — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:21:00 GMT

From Philanthropy Journal
by Lawrence Henze, Managing Director of Target Analytics

Many nonprofit professionals wonder if their organizations should perform prospect screening.

The truth is, in a perfect world, nonprofits would be performing ongoing screening, since it's a necessity for promoting greater fundraising success. But because this isn't a perfect world, the best plan of attack is to perform prospect screening only when it would be most beneficial and effective. But how do you determine that? It is a simple question: When is the best time for your organization to conduct a prospect screening project?

Read the full article.

To read all recent articles featuring Blackbaud and our customers, subscribe to the Blackbaud in the News RSS Feed.

Twitter - A Mix of Wit and Titter

Martin Jervis — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:35:00 GMT

Despite social networking types using the word liberally as if we all are intimate with the term, you may or may not have heard of Twitter, a social networking, micro-blogging site that allows you to write or text messages to the site. It has sometimes been described as the SMS of the Internet.

Twitter has become quite a phenomenon in recent times. In March 2009, a Nielsen.com blog ranked Twitter as the fastest-growing site in the Member Communities category for February 2009; Twitter had a growth of 1382%.

Over the past year, I've noticed more and more organisations within the Third Sector ‘twittering' on a consistent basis. It would appear that if used correctly, it can indeed become an influential medium for supporters. For example, several 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns used Twitter as a publicity mechanism, including that of Democratic Party nominee and President Barack Obama. British comedian Stephen Fry is also well known for having a myriad of followers and was reported in The Times in April 2009 as being the celebrity with the most followers on Twitter (just under 1 million).

Obviously, this can be a very powerful publicity vehicle, but does it work in the not-for-profit space? Personally, I feel any medium where you can promote information about your organisation and YOU control the content - is first class. I think the success of Twitter boils down to content consistency, frequency of update and immediacy. Providing there someone to frequently manage an organisation's updates and the content is relevant to its supporters, I believe it's a great benefit to any organisation. It's also a great testing ground or listening tool on how your audience respond to your posts.

Probably the most important aspect of Twitter for our sector is the potential to raise awareness by ‘friendraising '. The more awareness we raise, the more knowledge the general public has about the cause, so increasing the amount of supporters. Bullying UK is a great example of a charity that uses Twitter to build awareness with limited emphasis on raising money. They regularly post anti-bullying posters on their site to help them gain more followers. It's been very successful so far and followers are increasing rapidly.

Many think Twitter can help charities raise funds without spending any money themselves. This is true, but this medium is not particularly sustainable. Good-ly is a great example of an interesting and sustainable way to raise money via social networking, which is less reliant on the ‘geek' factor. If you use Good-ly to make a product recommendation on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else, and people buy what you suggest, they give 55% of any earned referral fees to charity. They rotate attention to 3 charities each month to even out distribution.

Twollars are another great example of a more sustainable way to raise money via social networking. Twollars are a currency of appreciation for Twitter. Twollars are designed to reward positive actions. You can give Twollars when someone helps you by tweeting useful information, sharing a tip, writing an inspiring Tweet or if you are just feeling generous. Besides giving them to people, you can show your support to multiple charities on Twitter by sending them Twollars. The recipient can then collect Twollars this way and later, exchange them for hard currency from businesses and people who support their cause.

I know many believe that Twitter's a fad and the novelty will disappear, which in some respects, could be true. However, they said the same thing about blogs and social networking - and look at them now! Facebook is a great example of this - now the main referral source for JustGiving. Perhaps the only true way to discover whether it works for you is jump on the Twitter bandwagon and test it out!

The Raiser's Edge & FirstClass Integration

Emily Cunningham — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:17:00 GMT

Many times in talking to clients and prospects we hear, 'Does The Raiser's Edge integrate to FirstClass?'. Even when organisations are consolidating all of their systems into one central CRM, they keep FirstClass in place. We've even heard, 'Over my dead body you are taking away FirstClass!' (OK, a little legacy humour there).

In response to the market, Blackbaud has entered into a partnership with Clearwater Consultancy Ltd., makers of the leading legacy management software, FirstClass. FirstClass enables legacy staff to keep track of all bequests made to their organisation. They can record all the important details about each legator and bequest together with estimated values, income received to date, review dates and a complete contact history. The partnership entails an integration between The Raiser's Edge and FirstClass.

The integration allows users to:

Search for existing records in RE7 before creating a case
Add new records in RE7 from within FirstClass
Pull constituent data from RE7 into a case record in FirstClass
Implement appropriate business processes such as marking Legator records as deceased in RE7 before adding to FirstClass

Key benefits of this solution are:

Prevent duplicate records between systems by linking constituents (RE7) and cases (FirstClass) appropriately
Better, cleaner data between systems - ensuring that records are marked as deceased and ‘do not contact', etc.
Less administrative burden to maintain data between systems
Gain a better understanding of where legacy gifts come from (having a view of whether or not the constituent had a relationship with the organisation previously)

If you are interested in learning more, just let me know.

Learning from the iTEAMS campers...and living what we believe

Rachel Hutchisson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:52:00 GMT

One of the ways I give back to the community is by serving on the board of directors of the SC Governor's School for Science and Math (GSSM).

GSSM is important to the state -- and to Blackbaud -- because it invests in the kids who will one day (soon) lead our workforce. The school is a public, residential program for 11th and 12th graders and boasts amazing results. Just this year, the 56 graduating seniors earned more than $10.5 million in scholarship offers and are headed to an array of schools, including Harvard, Yale, Duke, Emory and Vanderbilt.

But the faculty and staff don't just focus on high schoolers. They also do whatever they can to identify middle schoolers with a passion for math and science, cultivating them early on. Last week, thanks to the generosity of the folks at Google (thanks Eric, Jeff and team!), which has a data center in Goose Creek, SC, the school hosted something called iTEAMS -- or Innovation, Technology, Entrepreneurship Among Middle Schools.

iTeams was a week-long camp attended by 42 Berkeley County middle school students with an interest in math or science. The students were grouped into teams and given challenges to tackle, culminating in presentations to their fellow students, parents and members of the community during the camp's closing ceremonies.

I had the pleasure of serving on a career panel mid-week -- along with representatives from ATD, Dupont and Alcoa -- sharing the Blackbaud story and helping the campers understand how they might head toward a career at a technology company (maybe even right here on Daniel Island). Then I returned on Friday to share in the capstone presentations. They weren't only good. They were relevant and left me inspired to keep making the kind of change in my own life that I believe in but don't always act upon.

When I walked in the door, a team of kids were up front, presenting on how a family could make the move to a greener lifestyle. I happen to know a decent amount about this topic because my own family is heading in that direction. I'd driven to Monck's Corner that day in our new Prius (which replaced a much larger vehicle that, well, wasn't all that good for the world) and am thoroughly enjoying the produce from the share we purchased in a local farm. For my family, I think this is a good start. But start is the operative word here...there's so much more we can and should do.

The campers -- all of them -- did a great job, channeling their energy and enthusism for learning into actionable proposals. In the process, they reminded me how important it is to live what we believe, to invest our minds in helping the world and making sure our actions follow suit.

Thank you, iTEAMS campers, for the reminder. And congratulations on a terrific week. I hope to see some of you on campus at GSSM in a few years.

Finder help in the Data Health Center

James Dyksterhouse — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:04:00 GMT

How often do you run AddressFinder? Every month? 3 months? What about DeceasedFinder, PhoneFinder or Emailfinder? Once or twice a year? With everything else you have on your plate each day the last thing you want to remember is what each checkbox and option means in your finder processes you run every few months. You probably know about the Knowledgebase solutions and maybe you’ve even watched the AddressFinder video. But do you know about our User Guides and Help guide? These are two additional options that are available as well.

The user guide on our website can be reached by clicking here or by browsing to www.blackbaud.com under Support and then User Guides. The Data Health Center is one of the many Raiser’s Edge support guides available on the page(You will need your website User Name and Password to access).

Don’t have your website information handy? You are still OK. Just log into Raiser’s Edge go to the Data Health Center and hit the F1 key. This will bring up the Raiser’s Edge help guide right to the Data Health Center page. From here you can choose the appropriate service and then the step you are on.

I hope you find the two options above helpful and as always you can access Knowledgebase solutions (to find answers to questions about the steps) and Case Central (to see what you did last time).

Admission and Invitation

Andrew Payne — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:52:00 GMT

The Admission

My admission--I didn't read the directions. My friend, Chad Norman, sent a very descriptive email explaining the proper use of this publishing tool, which I promptly filed without reading. With that being said, my second post took somewhat longer to produce than I originally thought. Suffice to say, I experienced self-imposed, technical difficulties that resulted in three failed attempts to publish my work. I found the experience to be somewhat frustrating; however, I will attribute the late night effort to a learning exercise. I opined on such grandiose topics as business process management and business process automation, the impact of social networking on the accounting function, and my findings as they relate to particular research topics (e.g. the future direction of report dissemination). I plan to highlight those topics again in the very near future, but I wanted to publish a quick note to let you know that I the lights are still on at The Post blog (and, yes, I read Chad's email).

The Invitation

As a product line manager, I spend a good deal of my time talking with clients and non-clients about their business problems. Said another way, client input is an absolute requirement of the product management function. With that being said, I hope to expand my current research partner list in order to solicit as many diverse opinions as possible.

If you are interested in contributing to the future direction of Blackbaud's financial solutions, please feel free to email me directly at andrew.payne@blackbaud.com.

Why Startling Admissions as a Blog Title?

Kit Matthew — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:58:00 GMT

The minute someone thinks about coming to your museum, zoo, garden or theater...and considers purchasing a ticket and walking through that front door....the outcome is an unknown. We hope that the experience meets our visitors' expections and ours (as staff, board and volunteers). We hope that our visitors are startled in a good way.....delighted, intrigued, and motivated to become members, donors, and season ticket holders.

It's that great combination of selling the right experience, at the right price, to the right person, at the right time. That magic formula starts converting a casual visitor in to a lifetime supporter. And helps our cultural organizations continue to do the great mission-related things that they do.

Clear vision, distrinctive programs, compelling customer service, and communicating the right message help to cement the relationship. It's a combination of art and analysis.

I hope you enjoy the notes from the cultural field in this blog. And special thanks to one of our talented software engineers, Greg, for suggesting this title!

American Public Garden Association--Annual Conference 2009

Kit Matthew — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:38:00 GMT

"Plant people" have gathered in St.Louis to celebrate "The Global Garden" addressing topics such as the role of gardens in biodiversity and basics around membership and facilities maintenance.

Many gardens are reporting increases in membership numbers inspite of overall lower attendance....which means either retention is high and/or recruitment of new members is strong. What are you seeing out there in your museums, zoos, aquaria, and historic sites?

Check out APGA's site for more garden fun-facts and to find your nearest garden.

Index of National Fundraising Performance - Q1 2009

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:02:00 GMT

Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company, announced the latest Index of National Fundraising Performance for the first quarter of 2009. The index compares trends in key fundraising indicators from 79 organizations, including over 35 million donors and more than 66 million gifts totaling almost $2 billion in revenue. The index findings include giving data from direct mail, online, telemarketing, events, and other fundraising channels. You can get a complete summary of the latest index findings here.

Revenue and Donor Trends
All key metrics declined for the index as a whole for the first quarter of 2009 as compared to the first quarter of 2008. All of the industry sectors analyzed in the index had revenue declines over this period, and all but one sector had declines in donors as well. For the first time since the index began in 2002, overall revenue per donor declined; revenue per donor declines were experienced by two-thirds of the organizations in the index.

Index revenue declined a median 7.8% from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009. Revenue declines were widespread across the index with only 23% of the organizations in the index had positive revenue growth from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009. Donor numbers in the index fell a median 5.8% from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009. 30% of the organizations in the index had positive donor growth from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009. Donors have been declining consistently for the past three years; the index has not experienced positive year-to-year donor growth since the 2005 U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes.

In evaluating Q1 2009 trends, it is important to remember that first-quarter rates of growth and decline are often greater than eventual year-end results because they are calculated on relatively small numbers of gifts and revenue amounts. This is further exaggerated because, for many organizations, the first quarter of the calendar year is the slowest fundraising period, with smaller proportions of gifts and revenue coming in during that quarter than any other quarter of the year.

Long-Term Trends
over the past five years, including the record tsunami and hurricane giving periods, index revenue has grown at significantly lower than normal rates. From the twelve months ending Q1 2004 to the twelve months ending Q1 2009, index revenue grew a cumulative median 9.0%. This is an effective annual growth rate of 1.9% per year over these five years. Donors have remained essentially flat over the past five years. Donors declined a cumulative median 0.4% from the twelve months ending Q1 2004 to the twelve months ending Q1 2009. This is an effective annual rate of decline of -0.1%.

Target Analytics noted that declining donor populations across the index may be due to a mix of factors including economic changes, a changing generational profile in the United States, changing attitudes of donors about giving, and a change in focus by fundraisers toward higher-dollar donors. The index excludes iIndividual payments greater than $5,000, soft credits, and matching gift payments.

Performance Differences
There are two new sectors in the index in 2009. These are the arts and culture sector and the religion sector. All sectors saw decreases in revenue from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009. The religion and animal welfare sectors had the smallest revenue declines and the arts and culture, health, and societal benefit sectors had the largest revenue declines. The international relief sector was the only sector to have an increase in donor numbers this quarter, in contrast to the rest of the index. As with revenue, the arts and culture, health, and societal benefit sectors had the largest donor declines.

Click here to get a complete copy of the latest Index of National Fundraising Performance.

Target Analytics Releases First Look at 2009 Fundraising Trends

Melanie Mathos — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:11:00 GMT

The Target Analytics Index of National Fundraising Performance analyzes direct marketing giving for many of the largest nonprofit organizations in the country. For the 12 months ending Q1 2009, Target Analytics evaluated transactions from 79 organizations, including over 35 million donors and more than 66 million gifts totaling almost $2 billion in revenue. This quarter's Index saw the addition of two new sectors: arts and cultural, and religion.

The Q1 2009 Index findings indicated that nonprofit direct marketing experienced continued revenue and donor declines in Q1 as the economy remained weak. All of the key metrics analyzed in the Index were down from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009.

Here are some of the key findings:

Index revenue declined a median 7.8% from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009 with every sector declining.
Donor numbers in the Index fell a median 5.8% from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009.
For the first time since the Index began in 2002, overall revenue per donor declined 2.1% from the same period the previous year.
The number of new donors fell 12.9% from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009. Index donor declines are due primarily to declines in new donor numbers, which have fallen faster than overall donor numbers since the 2005 hurricanes, and have fallen three times faster since the recession began than they had in either of the previous two years.

As the Index points out, in evaluating Q1 2009 trends, it is important to remember that first-quarter rates of growth and decline are often greater than eventual year-end results because they are calculated on relatively small numbers of gifts and revenue amounts.

To access the results report, click here. (pdf)

NPO Blogging

Jay Love — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:35:00 GMT

Since we create custom web sites here at eTapestry and we now have a tool for very low end web sites called BlackbaudNow you might guess that all of us at eTapestry look at a large number of NPO web sites each week. One of my favorite parts is checking out personal blogs within those sites. I am especially fond of any blogs being written by the top executive of the charity.

A personal blog written by the top executive provides keen insights into that person, their method of leadership and their vision for the NPO. It gives me a superb way to connect, especially just prior to pulling out my credit card to become a supporter of the vision and mission portrayed. I am guessing I am not alone.

What is a major surprise and even a mystery to me is why more executive directors do not start a blog. One of the main roles of any executive director in the charity world and for any CEO in the business world is to initiate and facilitate communications. If any person in the key role as a leader is writing a letter, creating an email, answering an email or delivering a speech then they are MORE than qualified to do a weekly or monthly blog post regarding the mission of the charity. Heck, if I can do it, anyone can...

Let’s use a simple chart to illustrate:

Blog = Communications = Relationship Building = Success!

I will add a few footnotes to my masterful chart at the end of this post. First, I wanted to share examples of NPO blogs and in particular those authored by executive directors. As always, I am a huge believer in a picture (actual blog) being worth so much more than my text.

Before I share some examples of those executive director blogs I wanted to point you to a truly informative article that appeared in Fundraising Success about NPO blogging. You can find the article here. This article is jammed packed with information and tips.

I will share a few of the insights below:

According to Leroux Miller, there are six key ways in which blogs are different from Web sites:

Blogging software is easy and fast to use. Users can create and publish posts very quickly.
Updates appear at the top of the page, whereas if you update your Web site, visitors don't necessarily know what content was updated when.
Posts don't have to be long articles. You can add brief, frequent entries.
Blogs take on a personal, friendly style. It's a conversational, not institutional, medium.
Heavy use of links
People can subscribe so updates are delivered to them, rather than them having to visit your site to search for updates on their own.

Further reading reveals Leroux Miller stating there are five main types of nonprofit blogs:

News blog. If your organization wants to be known as the go-to source for the latest news on a topic.
Advocacy blog. If you want to be known as the "voice" of your issue.
Toolbox blog. If you want to be known as a resource, problem solver or technical assistance provider.
Storytelling blog. If you want donors to better understand the need for and impact of your work. Has a more personal tone.
CEO/executive director blog. If you want to build confidence in your leadership and approaches.

As you peruse the article you will also see how nimble the author is in answering the basic questions of why, who, when, where, what and how. It is well worth a read by any NPO considering adding a blog to the web site. Great stuff!

Please see how these various blogs add so much to understanding the mission and vision of the NPO's they represent below. Enjoy and please email me with any other examples I might be able to share a few weeks down the road.

Indianapolis Museum of Art
Shepherd Community Center
Jews for Jesus
Not a blog, but just as good: summitforsomeone.org
Live Strong
Indianapolis Children's Choir
Cathedral High School
Indy Cultural Trail
Life With a Baby
GreenPeace
Kiva
New York City Coalition Against Hunger
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
One
Oxfam America

Notice how the mission becomes real to the reader. Stories tell so much, often in emotional and meaningful ways. Think how easy it will be for the potential supporter to relate to the cause and yearn to be involved more. Is that not how philanthropy truly begins? Give it a try and I think you will soon see such relationships taking shape. Everyone reading this knows how to tell a good story. You may be a small step away from becoming a thought leader and a relationship building machine for your NPO!

Handling Attendance for Employees on Leave

William McGuire — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:08:00 GMT

Do you have an employee taking a few months off or a college student filling in while an employee goes on maternity leave? How do you plan to handle their attendance accruals while they are gone? Your first thought may be to edit their existing attendance plan and change the accrual amount to zero. This will not work because editing an existing plan on an employee record will zero out all previously earned accrual. Therefore, editing the current plan will provide an incorrect attendance balance for your employee. As a person who loves vacation, I would welcome the extra vacation but I'm sure you would rather not approve the extra days.

The proper way to handle this situation is to add a new attendance plan to the employee record. Make sure you do not remove the original plan. The newly added plan should be set up in the same manner as the employee's base plan with one change; the accrual amount is set to zero. All of the other fields such as carryover amounts, and total amount allowed remain the same. This allows you to maintain the employee's attendance balance while ensuring they do not accrue additional hours during their time out of the office.

When the employee returns, add a new attendance plan with the same information as the original plan back to the employee record. Make sure you do not delete any of the previous plans because this will cause the attendance balance to be incorrect. Please contact me if you are offering extra paid vacation during times employees are on leave. I would love to discuss any open positions you may have.

Bank Adjustments with Ease

Geoff Sharbrough — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:41:00 GMT

Do you need to transfer money from one bank account to another in The Financial Edge? Instead of creating the manual journal entries to the cash account, and then having to remember them when reconciling, wouldn't it be nice if FE did this for you? Cash Management is here to save the day!

Cash Management is an optional module that can help streamline processes associated with your banks, such as create bank adjustments, clear transactions electronically, and reconciliation. Since there are already a few blogs out there about bank reconciliation, let's discuss bank adjustments.

You can use bank adjustments to record transactions, such as bank fees or interest, and to transfer funds from one bank to another. Adjustments are created by clicking Create a new adjustment under Cash Management tasks on the Banks page.

When creating an adjustment to record a regular bank fee you can save time by creating an Adjustment Category. When you create the adjustment simply select the category and the fields will default in for you.

Transferring money between banks allows you to record the movement of funds out of one bank account and into another. Click to create a new adjustment under Cash Management Tasks. On the adjustment screen, enter the date, amount, and other appropriate information on the adjustment. In the drop down select Transfer Out and then select the bank account to transfer the money to on the Transfer To field. Once you save and close the adjustment, the balancing adjustment is reflected in both banks.

Want to see if you have Cash Management installed? Check out Knowledgebase solution BB61838 . If you don't have it installed contact your account manager for details.

Tips from a Troubleshooter: Aiding (But Not Financially) with Financial Aid

Sean Long — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:36:00 GMT

I'm calling an emergency posting of Tips from a Troubleshooter, because I know a lot of you are awarding financial aid to students right now. I'll return to my series on Student Billing 6 vs. Student Billing 7 soon, I promise.

The Financial Aid Billing Item describes the accounts the financial aid affects in the General Ledger, the schedule of financial aid credits, and a date rangefor the item. Also, if the Financial Aid type has an awarded default amount, you define it on the Billing Item itself.

If you want to generate your financial aid credits alongside your Tuition charges, you can create separate financial aid items that mirror your tuition charge schedules. For example, this screenshot shows a 10-pay Tuition item. Of course, with an amount of $0.00, the student wouldn't be very grateful.

So how do we give each student the financial aid they deserve? There's a few different ways of doing this, so pick the best for your organization's structure.

Financial Aid Applications tab - Use this tab if the Registrar's Office or Admissions Office determines the financial aid amount and recipient. This tab is visible from both Registrar's Office and Student Billing, so the Registrar's Office can determine the amount students receive for each financial aid type.
Tip: Make sure to use a different financial aid type for each billing item.
Add transactions to a group of records - If the financial aid amount is determined outside the software, use the Add Transactions to a Group of Records utility to add Financial Aid schedules to all of your students at the same time. Knowledgebase solution BB203392 guides you through the steps and you can use it for Financial Aid schedules as well!
Import - Good with spreadsheets? Use Import to put all of the schedules on the students' records.

Have more questions or additional clarification about financial aid? Leave a comment!

Facebook and Blackbaud NetCommunity Part 2

Dan Cobb — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:15:00 GMT

Our last post on Facebook explained why you should use Facebook; now we'll go into how Facebook works with Blackbaud NetCommunity. First, you need to connect the two applications. In this post, we'll go through the process.

What do I need to get started?
To get these two applications to talk, you will need:

Access to the Blackbaud NetCommunity web server (If you're hosted with Blackbaud OnDemand, contact support in the steps ahead)
A Facebook account (Join Facebook)
Rights to create Pages and Parts within Blackbaud NetCommunity

What needs to be done in Facebook?
After you set up your Facebook account, you have to create a Facebook application to bridge the gap between the two systems. If you've never created a Facebook application, follow the steps below.

In your browser, go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/
Log in if you have not already done so.
If you haven't added the Developer Application before, you will see a prompt asking you to approve it. Click .
Click the button in the upper right.
Enter a name for your application.
Carefully read Facebook's Terms, and if you agree to them, click Agree. Note: You must agree to these terms to integrate with Facebook.
Click .
Copy or write down the API Key and Secret Key for your application. You will need this information to configure your server.

What needs to be done on the Blackbaud NetCommunity web server?

Log into your web server.
Navigate to the Blackbaud NetCommunity folder. The default location is C:\Program Files\Blackbaud\NetCommunity\.
Find the file called Web.Config and open it in a text editor such as Notepad.
Find the appSettings section in the file.
<appSettings> <add key="ConnectionString" value="server=BBNCLEAD-TEST;database=BBNCLatest;user id=BBPortalWebUser;pwd=admin"/> </appSettings>
Note: Your appSettings may contain additional settings.
After the last add key= item in the list, add two more <add key= lines, one for "FBAppKey and FBSecret. The value for FBAppKey and FBSecret should be the values that you copied or wrote down when you created the Facebook Application.
<appSettings> <add key="ConnectionString" value="server=BBNCLEAD-TEST;database=BBNCLatest;user id=BBPortalWebUser;pwd=admin"/> <add key="FBAppKey" value="e239ad1c05e6de055c5bbb88c939c345" /> <add key="FBSecret" value="a6b455364cb81c0cac44a0f6c644239d" /> </appSettings>
Save and close the web.config file.

What does it do?
After the integration is established, you can do many things with the application. In my next post, I'll cover importing photos from Facebook and other features that are part of the built-in integration.

Other posts in this series:
Facebook and Blackbaud NetCommunity Part 1

Meet Shawntà Bradley

Diana Himes — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:57:00 GMT

Shawntà Bradley is a Distance Learning instructor and in this blog post she will give us a peak into her personal and professional life. Question: What can you tell us about this picture? Answer: This is a picture of the mountains when I went to Alaska for two weeks back in 2007 and makes me think of "quiet str ength." Question: Where do you live (state/country)? Answer: South Carolina Question: What is your favorite thing to do when you aren't working? Answer: Listen to music (all...(read more)